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23 State Attorneys General vs. a Coffee Mug

Being a semi-old coot, I don’t have much experience with hipster retailer Urban Outfitters. I visited one of their stores a few years ago to grab a gift card for my niece. My young daughter liked the set-up and excitedly told a pierced and tatted counter girl, “this place is almost as cool as WalMart!”

Miss Counterculture didn’t find this as amusing as I did.

To differentiate themselves from the WalMarts of the world, UO offers irreverent products aimed at their college-age clientele. Among the trendy and tacky wares, they feature a mug with an obviously fake prescription for coffee. “Drink one mug by mouth, repeat until awake and alert,” reads the Rx to “Mr. Java Joe Espresso.”

Not hilarious but no biggie, right?Wrong.

Twenty-three state Attorneys General with far too much time on their hands were shocked – shocked – at this novelty coffee mug. Something must be done! they cried and leapt into action with a Strongly Worded Letter (pdf).

As you may be aware, there is a national health crisis related to the abuse and diversion of prescription drugs. As Attorneys General, we have prosecuted and engaged in outreach to stop this epidemic. We are actively engaged in a campaign of environmental change to educate the public that abuse of prescription drugs is not safe simply because the medication originated from a doctor. By putting these highly recognizable labels on your products you are undermining our efforts. These products demean the thousands of deaths that occur each month in the United States from accidental overdoses.

You guys, this jokey mug mocks the deaths of thousands! Because there’s a design on the mug that talks about coffee and it… well, it looks kind of like a doctor wrote on the side of the cup and… the… it has coffee. Look, we don’t have time to go into all the reasons but this mug is basically a MURDERER.

These products are not in any way fun or humorous but make light of this rampant problem. We invite you to pull these products from your shelves and join with us to fight prescription drug abuse.

Are you people serious? IT’S A GAG COFFEE MUG. It’s not even a funny gag coffee mug, but that’s all it is. No sentient human on the face of the earth will mistake said mug for an actual prescription. Even if they were dim enough to make that error, the “prescription bottle” only contains lukewarm coffee from State U.’s cafeteria. The mug doesn’t mention illicit drugs or drug abuse, let alone deaths of drug abusers.

What kind of crazy person would see a student crossing the quad, glance at her novelty mug and think: “That evokes a prescription bottle. Which reminds me, I recently read about my state’s not-at-all-overpaid attorney general actively engaging in a campaign of environmental change to educate the public that abuse of prescription drugs is very, very bad. I daresay that this coffee mug undermines that noble effort and mocks the death of thousands!”

Even if there were a person this unhinged, why on earth would they think they have a right to stop the sale of not-terribly-funny coffee mugs? Whenever your state government says they don’t have enough money for courts, schools or health care, remember that 23 of the highest-ranking officials had enough resources to waste on novelty drinkware.

Urban Outfitters has a right to sell these cups without bullying from nanny-state enforcers. Now excuse me while I top off my far more impressive coffee mug.

This Independence Day, millions of Americans will gather to watch fireworks, grill some burgers and dogs, and celebrate the hard-fought freedoms of our forefathers. But in the heady rush of red, white, and blue patriotism, it’s important to remember what those freedoms actually mean, and to examine whether they still remain intact today.

For the past year, the Supreme Court has been mulling the case of Harris v. Quinn, in which the state of Illinois was asserting its authority to collect union dues from non-union members working as home health care workers under a Medicare program. The state’s argument was that, since public sector labor unions negotiate contracts that benefit non-union members in terms of higher wages and better working conditions, it would be acceptable to expect these workers to pay union dues in return.

Today’s much anticipated Supreme Court decision on the case of Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. was expected to have broad implications for the application of the Affordable Care Act vis a vis the Constitution. Can the government dictate what kinds of insurance employers are required to provide, or should individuals be free to enter into any contracts they choose?

Freedom of speech in America has been held to a higher standard as a fundamental right since the beginning. Before the country was even established, a precedent was set forth in the Colony of New York in 1735 that would forever allow people on this side of the pond more liberty with their tongues than those over in England.

Political speech has been winning a number of incremental victories in recent years, from the 2010 Citizens United decision that allowed SuperPACs to spend money on elections, to the ruling earlier this year that struck down the overall cap on political donations.

In an intersection of well intended laws and unintended consequences, Oregon's Government Ethics Commission has created a debate about what constitutes a real journalist. Once again, we're debating who is a real journalist, and who is not. The result of this determination could have much greater impact than anyone realizes.
According to a report in The Oregonian (allegedly a real newspaper),

A lot of important things were happening in 2008. Banks were failing, jobs were being lost, and our economy was about to be pushed off a cliff. The problems our country faced in 2008 were grave, and have had lasting consequences even to this day. Luckily, while voters, politicians, and pundits wasted their time trying to select new leaders of government to tackle these problems, then-Congressman Mark Udall saw something different. In the midst of economy downturn, Congressman Udall and his taxpayer-funded congressional staff felt the best use of their time and resources was to write a bill to get Americans to stand up and actually do something! Literally, something—anything actually that made a person sweat. And they wanted the government to design a program and devote resources promoting it.

Washington, DC- The House passed a one-year delay of the proposed IRS rules changes that would threaten to regulate conservative and libertarian 501(c)(4) non-profit groups out of existence. Sponsored by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the “Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act H.R. 3865” passed the House with unanimous Republican support and 14 Democrat votes.